When the Lotus Blooms

by Kanchana Krishnan Ayyar

  “Your father has just left, Rajam. What is your hurry?”

  “I was only wondering because we don’t have any children yet. Maybe if we get Sankaracharya’s blessings things could change.”

  “Why? Is he a magician?”

  “Don’t talk about holy men like that. Thappu, it’s a sin,” chided Rajam. Although Rajam was scared stiff of saamiyaars, Sankaracharya was somehow different. All her religious beliefs rose from fear of omission, and she didn’t want any harm to befall them. Once her father mentioned getting his blessings, then not going was unthinkable.

  Partha washed his feet in one corner of the backyard and said with a wry smile, “The only way we can have children is by sleeping together more often.”

  “Shhh… someone might be listening. Yenna you are so shameless.”

  “What is so shameless? Everyone does it, especially if they are married. If you can do it, why can’t you talk about it?”

  “Pongo naa, you always bring the topic back to that,” said Rajam not being able to bring herself to talk about sex.

  “Rajam, I always wanted to ask you. That day when I came to see you for the Ponpaakal, did you like me then?”

  “No…I mean I can’t really remember,” said Rajam hesitantly, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

  “Then why did you agree to see me?”

  “Because Appa said he would buy me shiny glass bangles if I did.”

  “And when you saw me, what did you think?”

  “That you were huge like an elephant.”

  “So then why did you agree to marry me?”

  “I got my glass bangles,” replied Rajam to an altogether puzzled Partha.

  Part VI

  Dharmu

  CHAPTER 18 – MAHADEVAN

  RANGPUR, EAST BENGAL – 1934

  Mahadevan couldn’t sleep. The rains were expected and the atmosphere was extremely humid and sticky. Once the monsoon set in, it rained incessantly for a few months but at least the weather was a little more bearable. The air was so heavy with moisture you could almost squeeze it out. The bedrooms, the study and the living room had punkhas, huge fans made out of palm leaves, suspended from the ceiling. Long ropes that worked on a pulley system went through the vents on top of the doors and hung outside the room. The punkhawallah sat and pulled on the ropes, moving the fan back and forth creating a draft of sorts. In most of the homes in Calcutta and Delhi, the electric fan had replaced this labor intensive punkha but here in the country, in remote Rangpur, the punkha had to suffice. There were two boys who worked round the clock, going from room to room, manning the punkhas. The night was terribly hot and sometime during the middle of the night, the punkhawallah fell asleep.

  “Punkha,” yelled Mahadevan, stirring from the heat, and the fan resumed movement again, though somewhat ineffectually. It was very early in the morning when Mahadevan woke up again, his body bathed in perspiration. His cotton banyan, the undershirt he wore to sleep, was soaked with sweat and sticking to his wet body like a second skin. The punkhawallah was asleep again. Poor boy; the child must be tired. Pulling on the ropes was tedious and monotonous work. Mahadevan didn’t want to wake him again. He couldn’t sleep anyway, so he thought he might as well get an early start to his day.

  He glanced at Dharmu, who was fast asleep next to him in spite of the heat and felt sad for her. Things had been especially hard for her. Just then, almost as if she knew she was being watched, Dharmu stirred. “Good day to you sir. How do you do?” she mumbled in her sleep.

  “Good heavens!” thought Mahadevan, “She practices English in her sleep.” He shook his head in disbelief as he sauntered out of the room, opening the doors to go and sit out in the verandah, where it was slightly cooler. It had not been easy for Dharmu. When Mahadevan married her, she was very young and did not move to their home in Nagarcoil until a couple of years later. Dharmu had been home tutored in Tamil. She was introverted to begin with and shy in front of her husband. As a result, they had very little to say to each other. Mahadevan was much more proficient in English than in his native Tamil and Dharmu spoke no English — the perfect foundation for an uncommunicative marriage. No one thought about all this when they arranged his wedding. His mind went back to his earlier conversation with Corbin about love and marriage. Corbin was right; it was an unfair system, being forced to spend the rest of your life with someone chosen by your parents. He did not see Dharmu until the day of their marriage. It was almost as if his parents were arranging a housekeeper or cook, or someone to take care of his primeval needs, and not thinking of a companion suited to his nature who matched his intellectual capability. He had a double Masters and could speak five languages fluently, but what use was that when you were lost for topics of conversation with your wife. She did not understand where he came from and very soon their conversations became rudimentary, always about mundane things. He could not partake in an intellectually stimulating conversation with her about world affairs because she knew nothing beyond her village and home. Sometimes he wished he had married someone of comparable upbringing and education. It was a shame that women were not educated beyond basic reading and writing. Hardly any women studied beyond high school and going to college was out of the question. The whole system undermined women’s cerebral capabilities. If only Dharmu had the exposure, he was sure she would rise to the challenges. Right now, even though they had been married for several years, their relationship was stiff and strained, like that between a tutor and a student. He undertook to educate her in the ways of the west and to make her at least presentable before his British peers, even if it was for selfish reasons.

  ‘Maybe one day I will apologize to her for putting her through all this strain. But I have to do this. Once we move to Calcutta or Delhi, the society ladies there will eat her alive.’

  The Bengali women were much more fashionable and westernized, wearing sleeveless blouses and georgette saris with long dangling earrings, attending parties, often with a cigarette in one hand and a tall gin and tonic in the other. Those educated in English convent schools effortlessly spoke the language of the masters. Dharmu would look like a village idiot next to them. Mahadevan knew it was only a matter of time before he moved to Calcutta, where they would be thrown into a hectic social circle of balls and formal dinners, croquet parties and tennis mornings. He had to train Dharmu, enabling her to mingle with the crowd she would associate with in the near future. Already she had picked up many phrases in English and learned to use tableware but her education was far from complete. At least he overcame the biggest hurdle, introducing her to meat eating. He could still recall that momentous day with clarity.

  He had ordered the morning meal that Sunday, chicken curry and rice and instructed the cook not to make any vegetables. The children had eaten earlier. It was past one o’clock in the afternoon when Mahadevan and Dharmu came to the dining room for dinner. The bearer served rice and then he put the chicken curry on Dharmu’s plate.

  “Nahin nahin, sabji curry laao,” she hurriedly told the bearer, who knew she was vegetarian.

  “No Dharmu, no vegetables for you today.” Mahadevan kept a poker face. This was going to be hard and he needed to do it with dispassion. He could not afford to exhibit any emotion.

  “What do you mean? What shall I eat? I can’t have this maamsam!” said Dharmu, pointing with disgust at the chicken on her plate. Mahadevan took a deep breath. He reached across, sliced the chicken off the bone, cut it into small pieces and mixed it with the rice.

  “Eat,” he said quietly.

  “No I can’t. I can’t. It’s a sin. Thappu. I can’t eat this.” Dharmu was horrified at the request but trying very hard to keep her tears in check. She knew Mahadevan thought of her as an uneducated child and she did not want to come across as a petulant youngster throwing a tantrum.

  “Eat,” Mahadevan repeated, his voice low, yet authoritative, and stern.

  “Please, don’t make me do this.” Once Dharmu realized Mahadevan was serious,
tears of fear streamed down her cheeks. Her face was flushed and her throat closed in repulsion and fear.

  “I’ll learn English, Bengali, whatever you want but I can’t eat this,” she pleaded to an unyielding Mahadevan.

  “Dharmu, when you married me, you knew you had to make adjustments didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but you did not tell me about this. No one told me I would have to eat this horrible meat.” Her voice was rising to a crescendo, echoing her emotions which had spiraled out of control.

  “I didn’t know back then that it would be so important for both of us to eat meat. If I had, I would have spoken to you about it right then.”

  “Why… why can’t I be vegetarian?” Dharmu was now crying, her hot tears warming the cold chicken curry.

  “Because I work for the British! They are our masters! We have to be like them, think like them and act like them if we want to succeed under them. Do you understand? You are my wife and you have to support me.” He paused to control himself, when he realized he was almost shouting. This was a delicate but necessary task, one that needed tact and some coaxing. His voice mellowed to its customary smooth and placid tone.

  “Very soon we will move to Calcutta, where you will be invited to the Viceroy’s house and you can be certain, no vegetarian food will be served there.”

  “So then I won’t eat for one day. It won’t kill me. But eating this will.” Dharmu could not think of eating the chicken. Just the thought of putting dead animal flesh into her mouth made her whole body revolt. She was not going to succumb to the pressure.

  “It’s more than just not eating Dharmu, please try and understand. My colleague’s wives all eat meat and drink wine. They will laugh at me and make fun of you. They will call you names behind your back. Would you like that?” Mahadevan was trying a new tactic, trying to force her into complying. Anything to get the job done.

  “What names?” asked an unfazed Dharmu.

  “Village bumpkin, country girl, I don’t know what else.”

  “Let them; I don’t mind.”

  “But I do. And if you want to stay with me, then you have to eat meat.”

  “I have to?”

  “Yes you do. Please don’t make this harder for yourself than it already is. I went through the same experience several years ago that you are going through now. When you first eat the meat, it is chewy and repulsive but put mind over matter and you can overcome anything. You will get used to it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you can go back to your father’s home. I will keep a governess for the children.”

  Dharmu looked at his somber face and knew he was very serious and she could not talk her way out of this. She looked at the brown pieces of flesh on her plate. She pierced one piece of chicken with her fork and looked at it distastefully. She could hear the chicken squawking in pain, beseeching her not to eat it. As she brought the morsel up to her mouth, the chicken was getting bigger and bigger in her mind’s eye, squawking in her face, begging to be allowed to live. She saw it grow in size until it completely dominated her vision.

  “The chicken! It’s alive!” Dharmu shrieked, horror imprinted on her face as she threw the fork back onto the plate.

  “No it isn’t. It was killed hours ago and you are in no way responsible for its death.”

  “How can I eat dead flesh?” Dharmu was not going to give in without a fight.

  “Put it in your mouth! Now!” Mahadevan screamed, bringing his face close to hers.

  Dharmu put the piece of chicken into her mouth, her ears throbbing with its deafening squawking, her mouth flooded with the bird’s fear hormones released at the time of its death, adding to her own dread and aversion. The very act of chewing dead flesh was so repellant that her stomach heaved and she threw up all over her plate.

  ‘Yes!’ she thought gratefully, ‘Now I don’t have to eat this hateful chicken.’ Mahadevan was nonplussed. He called the bearer to clean up and bring another plate of chicken curry which he proceeded to patiently cut, as he had done before.

  “Eat. And don’t you dare throw up.” His voice and eyes were deathly cold.

  Dharmu shivered in fear as she put another piece of meat into her mouth and chewed and swallowed, all the time looking at Mahadevan with hate and revulsion.

  She ate chicken that day but would not talk to him for the rest of the week.

  Mahadevan sighed. He knew he had been harsh with her but it was just another step in her education. Unfortunately, he realized a long time ago, just being brilliant and doing a job well didn’t bring in the promotions. He watched all his dumb colleagues supersede him because of their tennis or golf game and he knew with the British masters, when it came to job promotions, he couldn’t rely on the prospect of equal treatment and fairness. Everything rested on your boss liking you and what he thought about your wife, whether she was up to hobnobbing with the Brits or able to host formal dinners. He realized the only way to succeed was by aping them, by learning to eat meat, drink wine, smoke cigars, play tennis or golf or whatever sport your boss played. It was all about reinforcing the superiority of British social niceties. There was no way he was going to remain a Collector all his life because of his Indianness. He would bend whatever values he could without compromising his integrity, without selling his soul. Then again, soul selling was a matter of personal definition and perspective. There were those who saw his so called ‘Britishisms’ as soul selling and complete mental slavery. But he knew how to keep these social refinements from affecting his core values, or so he thought. They were just things to be done and not pondered over.

  Mahadevan wandered into his study and reviewed his latest case due for sentencing. As Collector and District Magistrate, he heard civil and criminal cases but this one was particularly complicated. A Muslim woman had been assaulted and raped and later succumbed to her injuries. The Muslim community was up in arms and wanted the case to be tried by their own Mullahs. Mahadevan knew the girl’s family would get no justice under Muslim law, and so he tried the case in his court. After hearing the prosecution and defense, he had to decide about the severity of the sentence. It was going to be either life imprisonment or the gallows. Either way, the Muslim community was sure to be aroused and furious and he would have to ask for armed reinforcements before passing the sentence. He was always a little heavy handed when it came to cases against women. For too many years their pleas had gone unheard. They were always repressed, kept under close supervision and their cases hardly ever went to court, especially those involving rape.

  His father, Nilakantan Ayyar, had ingrained in him ideas of equal opportunities for women. Nilakantan Ayyar was always partial to his daughters, much to the chagrin of his sons, and he educated them up to graduate level, something unheard of in those days. Even as a child, when there was a quarrel between the boys and girls, Nilakantan took the side of the girls regardless of blame, saying that women needed more support and boys could fend for themselves. Just growing up watching his father’s treatment of women influenced Mahadevan in many ways. He wanted to make sure women would always be heard in his courtroom. As he sat deep in thought about the case, his eyes moved around the room and settled on his framed degrees from Presidency College and Cambridge.

  Mahadevan completed high school when he was thirteen years old. He was way too young to attend college, so he spent the next two years helping his grandfather run the vast estates attached to their home in Nagarcoil. Sita Gardens was a massive, yet beautiful mansion. A civil engineer, his father had personally supervised its construction, naming it after his wife, Sitalakshmi. Mahadevan’s favorite room was the library. Nilakantan Ayyar was a voracious reader. Every month, leather-and-gold bound books arrived from the Oxford Printing Press in England. He had books on every topic, including poetry, art, music and literature. Mahadevan spent hours just browsing through the books. To encourage his children to read, Nilakantan Ayyar made them check out two books every week, which they had to read. They coul
dn’t cheat because the following week he questioned them on the content. Having read them himself, he knew when anyone deceived him. If he caught them, they would have to write up a critique or synopsis and read an extra book the following week. Mahadevan’s younger brother, Kannan, was not very book minded in spite of his intelligence and would come to Mahadevan, begging him to write his critiques and bribing him with something or the other. No one needed to motivate Mahadevan to read. In fact Nilakantan Ayyar used his love for reading as a tool to punish him. All reading privileges would be taken away as punishment for errant behavior and Mahadevan would go crazy when that happened.

  Mahadevan read Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Guy de Maupassant, Victor Hugo and many other authors, poring over the numerous volumes repeatedly until he was able to quote passages from memory. He spent two glorious years reading almost all the time. When he wasn’t reading, he spent time with his beloved grandfather. It was wonderful to have so much time to be near the patriarch and learn from him. His grandfather or Appanshayal, as everyone called him, brought up all the grandchildren. Whenever anyone asked him the reason for something, he always replied it was God’s doing, “Appan Shayal” — hence the name. Widowed early in life, the grand old man chose to live with his eldest son, Nilakantan and took on the responsibility of imbibing in his grandchildren a love for education. Although Appanshayal studied only up to high school, both his children had university degrees. Nilakantan became a civil engineer, and his younger son, became a veterinary surgeon. His daughter, attended up to high school, studying even after her marriage, an arrangement he made with her in-laws at the time of her wedding.

  Appanshayal laid the foundation for a lineage dedicated to education and knowledge. Spending so much time in his company, Mahadevan learned from him the intricacies of accounting. Appanshayal worked in the treasury department for the Raja of Travancore. Even though the British controlled most of India, there were still many semi-autonomous princely states that traded with each other in gold. Every state had its own currency minted in gold and it was Appanshayal’s job at the Raja’s treasury to keep accounts. He managed Sita Gardens from the start, supervising construction from the time the first foundation stone was laid. Nilakantan was forced to be away from the house for extended periods of time, as he was a civil engineer and his work took him all over the state. Appanshayal brought up all his grandchildren and supervised their education in their father’s absence. A learned man and a strict Brahmin, he did not live in the main house but constructed an outhouse with a room and an attached pooja room for his prayers. A devotee of Shiva, he spent almost two hours each with his morning and evening prayers. He had a strict regimen, practicing yoga and meditation and he ate only once a day. The food was served to him in a special room by his daughter-in-law and once she served him, she would have to leave, allowing him to eat in complete seclusion. Everyone in the house knew to respect his privacy and never dared disturb him whenever he ate or prayed. The rest of the day was devoted to the family and to the upkeep of the property.